


Spread Your Wings of Love

by thundercrackfic



Series: Ineffably Soft [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), But on the roof, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is just as surprised that there's a rooftop garden as you are, Industrial-grade softness, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, M/M, Other, Post-Canon, This ship holds a whole lotta love, Wing Grooming, Wingfic, Wings, ineffably sappy, lots of comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 09:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22968001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundercrackfic/pseuds/thundercrackfic
Summary: Crowley hasn't been able to fly since he Fell. It develops that the love between him and Aziraphale can go a long way toward fixing that. What follows is nearly unbearably sappy, especially for our favorite demon.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Ineffably Soft [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534874
Comments: 18
Kudos: 138





	Spread Your Wings of Love

Aziraphale exhaled an _ah_ of rapture as a waiter placed the last of twelve courses on the table between them: an elaborate wire sculpture of a tree, its limbs festooned with tiny trays, each of which supported a bonbon in the shape of a fruit. The angel giggled and locked eyes with Crowley as he noticed that two of the sweets were tiny, perfectly modeled marzipan apples. “Forbidden fruit,” he said archly.

Gluttony sweetened with a healthy dose of lust (for the food) radiated out of Aziraphale. Crowley still wasn’t used to his changed sensitivity to the angel’s emotions – or maybe it was a lowering of Aziraphale’s barriers, he couldn’t be sure. But he loved it, wallowed in the rich sensation of the depth of the angel’s feelings, in the sweetness of his love and carnality of his hedonism.

Crowley quirked an eyebrow at him, picking up the dessert, and said: “Just one bite won’t hurt.”

Aziraphale pretended to need a moment to consider it. He pursed his lips and looked at Crowley coquettishly. “Well, all right. Just _one_ bite.” He picked up the sweet and took a moment to admire the decorative color that had been applied to it, making it appear to be a perfect little fruit, yellow-green but for a blush of red on one side. Then he popped it into his mouth. He closed his eyes, savoring the flavor, as he wiped his fingers on his napkin. “Perfect texture of the almond paste, and not over-sweetened,” he said after he swallowed. “I think there’s a touch of cinnamon oil in it, and, mmmm, cloves and nutmeg and cardamom.”

When he opened his eyes, Crowley was in a contemplative pose, holding his own marzipan apple. Aziraphale licked his lips as he, too, contemplated it, and there was a surge of angelic desire that was invisible to everyone but Crowley. Crowley laughed. “I can feel the covetousness flowing off of you, angel. Is this how you came by your insatiable lust for knowledge? Couldn’t keep to just one apple?”

Aziraphale’s cheeks pinked. “I didn’t _mean_ to covet yours—”

“There’s nothing tastier to me than tempting an angel to sin,” Crowley said with a smile that had more than a little demon in it. “I’d rather have _that_ than dessert.” And he held the apple out to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale looked at him darkly and then, rather than taking the proffered sweet with his hand, ate it neatly from Crowley’s fingers.

Flustered, Crowley reached for his Scotch and allowed the angel to consume the rest of their dessert in peace as he handled the bill and indulged himself in watching. He had convinced Aziraphale to wear something more modern to that night’s ballet performance, and the angel had acceded to the letter of the request, wearing the midcentury modern suit he’d procured for the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. It was light blue-gray silk dupioni, and it shimmered under the hundred little lights of the chandeliers. Its color enhanced the blue of his eyes and made his hair look even more like a wayward cloud than usual.

Looking at the angel, he felt strangely warm. There was something extra in Aziraphale’s aura that was different this evening, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He couldn’t put any of that into words, though. “Wrap it up, angel, it’s nearly time for the show,” Crowley said.

“Oh yes, my dear, I’m sorry to have dawdled so,” Aziraphale replied, bustling away from the table and toward the door. He did, of course, stop to compliment the hostess for the food and drink and service. For her part, the hostess appeared poleaxed by the force of Aziraphale’s charisma. He was radiating beneficence and love even more than usual. Crowley tried to radiate a little impatience to urge the angel out the door, but it was difficult to feel any ire in the presence of all that sweetness.

Crowley suspected that they had Aziraphale’s confidence of a perfect evening to thank for the curtain not rising on the ballet until they’d hurried to their seats. Throughout the show Aziraphale emoted along with the story and _oohed_ at the costumes and _aaahed_ at the scenery changes and came over verklempt at the death of a character and Crowley basked in Aziraphale’s reactions.

They walked home. Crowley’s strutting saunter had relaxed into more of a liquid sashay; Aziraphale, for his part, practically danced, twirling to face Crowley as he rapturously reviewed the dinner menu, enthused about the performances, gushed about the costumes, and exclaimed over fashions and artworks in shop windows. His eyes were alight and his sunbeam grin overwhelming. He tripped over a kerb and stumbled into Crowley and laughed, making that sunbeam smile even brighter, before he righted himself and spun around a light post to prove he was still able to keep his balance.

“Angel, turn down the light just a bit, you’re too bright for me!” Crowley said, trying and completely failing to sound cross.

“Oops, sorry!” Aziraphale said, pressing his hand to his lips and trying to appear sheepish, but as he looked at Crowley from under his eyelashes he achieved only coquettishness and then giggled again. He did sober a bit, which Crowley regretted, but within half a block Crowley became aware that the angel was tossing little miracles in all directions—filling the pockets of passersby with candy, tempting a homeless person to try a very short walk to a shelter that actually did have a bed for him this evening, wishing the soreness of a tired domestic worker’s feet away and imagining her bills paid.

He was a boiling-over kettle of angelic goodwill. Crowley took his arm and urged him to walk toward the bookshop faster, hoping the miracles wouldn’t escalate into a big scene before they arrived. They didn’t, but only because of the late hour; few humans presented themselves as problems for Aziraphale to solve.

Crowley wasn’t sure where this night was going. But he had no doubt that it was going to be magical. He was ready to follow wherever the angel led.

They entered the bookshop, and into a shelter from everything else on Earth.

“Oh, let’s not go to the stuffy old back room tonight,” Aziraphale exclaimed as they entered. He fetched a bottle and glasses. “Let’s have champagne on the roof!”

“There’s a roof?” Crowley asked.

“Of course there is, my dear,” Aziraphale said, leading him to a tightly wound iron spiral staircase that he’d definitely never seen before.

“Since when did you have a rooftop garden?” Crowley asked incredulously. There was a ring-shaped tiled patio surrounding the domed glass of the bookshop oculus, with potted plants and trees in the space between the tiles and rooftop edge, rustling in a warm summer wind. In the dark Crowley couldn’t detect their colors, but they seemed lush. The tiles gleamed where they reflected city lights. By all rights they should’ve been coated with city dust, but they looked sparking clean.

“Oh, I don’t know, it seemed like the right thing to have just now,” Aziraphale said, spinning around in a circle and then handing the bottle and glasses to Crowley. His wings were nearly visible, quivering and fluttering just on the edge of corporeal reality. He had a tartan wool blanket, of course, but when he tried to spread it on the ground the wind took it. “Oh, bother,” he said, pouting. He stepped on the blanket, and then snapped with both hands. The wind died, and Aziraphale spread the blanket. He shrugged off his suit jacket and laid it neatly on the blanket as he sat. “Come sit, dear boy.”

Crowley handed the bottle and glasses back to Aziraphale and joined him on the blanket. “Did you just shut down the wind all over London?”

“Of course not! It’s just a—a shield thing. Keeps the wind out, and human eyes out too. But we can see through it. I say, it’s a fine night tonight, isn’t it?” He took the foil off the champagne and when he popped the cork his wings popped forth too. They crackled with ethereal energy. He poured for both of them, clinking his glass with Crowley’s and heaving a sigh that was accompanied by a wave of contentment that nearly bowled Crowley over.

Crowley took off his glasses and reached out with his occult senses, feeling the tingly edges of the protective dome of angelic energy and the glamour cast around it. It extended 10 feet above them and twice as many across. That was not a small miracle. And still Aziraphale was full to bursting with power. “What’s gotten in to you?” Crowley asked. “Where’s all this miraculous power coming from?”

“You don’t know?” Aziraphale asked, his eyes wide. “You don’t feel it, too?”

“Feel what? ’M glad you’re enjoying yourself, whatever it is.”

“Oh—er—haha, I mean—” Aziraphale stammered, and his feathers fluffed. He put down his glass and took Crowley’s hand in both of his; it hummed with power and it was warm and soft and strong, and Crowley was glad he was sitting because his limbs felt like jelly.

Aziraphale said something but Crowley couldn’t hear it over the roaring in his ears. “Mnwhat?” he asked, intelligently.

Another angelic giggle. “I said, it’s _you_ , my dear.”

“Wot?” Crowley asked; despite appearances, it was a different question from his previous one. It was the only syllable he could get out against the waves of happiness that were issuing from the angel, so thick he could almost see it.

“Oh, dear, I don’t want to make you self-conscious, but—yes, it’s you. You’re so _happy_. I’ve never felt you so happy and it makes _me_ so happy,” and there was that sunbeam smile again.

A part of Crowley was embarrassed to be so seen, but he couldn’t restrain a surge of affection for this ridiculous angel. Crowley saw Aziraphale react to Crowley’s feeling, closing his eyes as it washed over him. It was embarrassing, but also gratifying to earn those reactions. “Ng. But I don’t follow—how’s that making you all ready to light London up with miracles?”

Aziraphale opened his eyes and looked at Crowley’s hand, still grasped in his. He rubbed circles in Crowley’s palm with one thumb. Crowley felt pinned to ground by that contact, unable to move. “You’re going to hate this, I think, or at least you’ll _say_ you do,” Aziraphale said. “Angels draw their power from virtues, as you know. Most of them are powered by faith. But here, on Earth, among humanity, I’ve found love to be the most potent thing, love and the happiness that comes from being loved. Even during the darkest times, when humans are suffering, when they can’t afford charity, when they lose faith and hope, they still always love. And I can always create love by giving it. You might say I’ve become a connoisseur of the miraculous potency of love, down here.” He looked up at Crowley, and his eyes glowed blue. Crowley felt simultaneously exposed and protected.

“It’s intoxicating, Crowley, being able to feel what you feel for me, feeling how well and happy you feel. You’ve deserved this for so long. You deserve so much more. I’m only sorry I didn’t try to heal you earlier. Your love is _so_ strong. It’s a wellspring of power for me. And I love you back so, so much—it’s like a prayer wheel, spinning round and round.” As he spoke, the wave of affection and happiness rolled back toward Crowley, larger than it had been when had left him.

Crowley couldn’t help but respond, and in a detached part of his ever-observant mind he realized what was about to happen only as it unfolded. His unguarded affection hit the angel and Aziraphale’s soul involuntarily answered with a surge of unabashed love. It hit him with a wave of holy bliss that made his soul surge in response. In a positive feedback cycle, the wave ricocheted back and forth between them, climbing higher each time, from bliss into ecstasy, and Crowley was overcome. As he often did when overwhelmed, he lost control of his human corporation, and collapsed into his serpentine form.

* * *

“Good heavens,” Aziraphale remarked, glad he’d been sitting down for that experience. He still felt a little giddy, but the runaway feedback loop had been halted and he’d regained self-control. He still felt power humming and whirling within and around him, frizzing his hair and puffing his feathers. It pulsed in his veins and throbbed in his bones, and his skin was aglow with the adoration they’d fed each other. It was thrilling, but a little overwhelming. He needed some place to direct it, some major work. Bless, heal, or ward, it didn’t matter, but he wouldn’t be able to rest, maybe not even return indoors to be cooped within walls, until he’d found a way to spend some of the euphoric energy that vibrated his whole being.

After a pause to strengthen his hold on all the power, he considered Crowley, who was now a tightly wound set of serpentine coils, his head buried deeply inside them. The coils moved sluggishly, trying to wind tighter, but slipping over themselves to accomplish little.

Aziraphale chuckled. “I’m so sorry, I rather let things get out of hand,” he said to his friend, but he knew there was no regret in his voice. Receiving no response from the pile of snake, he reclined on one elbow with his champagne flute, letting his wings sag to the tiles behind him, and gazed upward at the few stars that were visible above London’s lights. His wings thrummed and the air around him crackled with energy. He was giddy with the strength he held, ready to unleash it for Good somehow, he just wasn’t sure how.

After several minutes, Crowley poked his head out from beneath the bottom-most coil and flicked his tongue at him accusingly.

Aziraphale poured himself another glass, unrepentant. “How are you going to enjoy this delicious bubbly champagne in that form? Change back so we can have a proper conversation.”

“Do you promissssse to control yourssssselff?” Crowley hissed.

“Mostly,” Aziraphale smiled mischievously, then relented. “All right, I promise. Please shift.”

Crowley transformed back sluggishly, and Aziraphale didn’t try to hide his curiosity as he watched the change. The demon seemed to flicker through many of his prior manifestations on his way to his modern appearance.

“I miss your long hair,” Aziraphale remarked as Crowley’s form finally settled into his most recent, short-haired manifestation, still coiled tightly as a snake, his arms hugging his knees. Crowley’s eyes were a little wide, the scleras still completely yellow. Aziraphale could sense a mix of emotions roiling within the demon. He allowed himself a moment to feel joy that Crowley’s soul remained so open to him, but then he saw Crowley twitch in response to that joy, and he tamped down his own emotions a bit. Crowley’s happiness was still there, but it was tempered a little with fear. Fear of what? He hazarded a guess.

“I truly am sorry that I let things get out of hand. I think I can keep that from happening again,” Aziraphale said. “It was just...unexpected, how good you were feeling, how open, and it’s so fulfilling.” Crowley looked away, his jaw working. Aziraphale felt impossibly tender. “I’m not sure if that was all my doing or yours or maybe a little of both, but it’s better than any wine. I was quite drunk on it.”

“That wasn’t like wine, that was like molly.”

“Really, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be.” Crowley looked down, his lips pressed together. “Wasn’t bad. Just—weird.”

Aziraphale decided to wait for him to elaborate, looking at him inquisitively. Yellow eyes met his own, looked away, then locked with his. “‘M not used to, you know. Feeling...” He trailed off.

“Happy? Good?” Aziraphale prompted, with a gentle smile. “That’s what started all of this. I’m so pleased for you, Crowley. It’s about time. It’s more than time you should be happy.”

Crowley pulled an exaggerated face of disgust. “It is _far_ too sappy on this rooftop just now.”

“More wine?” Aziraphale asked. The champagne had obligingly turned into a moscato, just sweet enough to taste like dessert, but not syrupy. Crowley unwrapped one arm from its tight grip on his knees and held out his glass.

They sipped quietly for a while, not to get drunk, just to let time pass, to give Crowley the time he needed. Inch by inch, he relaxed. Aziraphale throbbed with energy, but he could be very, very patient. He waited, letting the wine blur his edges a bit. It helped him feel less wound up, but at the same time it made self-control harder.

At length, Crowley glanced back at Aziraphale’s wings. “That’s a lot of power you’re storing, angel. It’s making a mess of your feathers.”

“It’s quite distracting,” Aziraphale admitted. “I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of work I could do to make use of it. I don’t want to do anything too flashy. Wouldn’t want to inspire anyone from Upstairs to investigate what we’re up to.”

The power hummed along his wings, and he set down his glass to rise to a kneeling position so that he could flap them a few times to make the mussed feathers settle. Crowley watched him, and Aziraphale could feel his adoration, tempered with a hint of longing.

Aziraphale had an idea. He wondered if Crowley would permit him. A lot had already happened this evening.

“Crowley? That time I—I mean, that time you permitted me to heal you, there was one thing I didn’t do, because it was too difficult for me, just then.”

Crowley licked his lips. “My wings,” he said, softly.

“Would it be all right if I just took a look? To see if maybe, with enough power, I could do something to help you?”

Flashes of hope and fear and, oddly, anger. Crowley didn’t respond right away. Aziraphale waited. “Yeah, all right.”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said. He knelt next to Crowley and placed a hand on his knee, and went down and in. He could feel Crowley keeping his aura as far from Aziraphale’s as he could, not intruding on his inspection.

What he found was grim, but that wasn’t surprising, given how long the curse on Crowley’s wings had lasted. He withdrew his aura and took his hand off Crowley’s knee. “It is very difficult,” he said. “What I did before was all the macroscopic things, the bones and muscles and skin. What remains is the feather roots. It’s a complicated curse, no lie, a distinct curse on each and every feather. It’s partly physical and partly metaphysical. And it’s wrapped up with your time manipulation ability to make it permanent so I can’t end it entirely on my own. You’ll have to participate in the unworking. We’ll have to address them one at a time, and each one is going to be a battle.”

“S’alright, angel, you’ve done so much already—”

“No, I didn’t say I can’t do it, just that it will be difficult. I’ll need your help. I have to work on this plane at the same time as I work on the other one. It won’t be easy to keep my balance. But I can do it, Crowley, I think I can fix you right up.”

With a flash of anger, Crowley recoiled. He jumped to his feet, pacing around the confines of the ethereal shield that encircled their rooftop retreat.

“What’s wrong? What did I say?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley stopped, standing tall, his fists clenched. “I’m not _broken_ ,” he snarled.

“I didn’t say that you were—”

Crowley tipped his wings into reality, and they mantled around him. They were blacker than the London night but they glinted in the city lights and so appeared more star-filled than the light-polluted city sky. Crowley’s surge of anger made them fan with power, and the knife-edged primaries rattled against each other. The sound was wrong; feathers shouldn’t rattle like swords against shields, but the demon’s did. Sharp-edged, too stiff and hard for flight. Cursed. They were beautiful and terrifying. Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s anger and pride and pain all mixed up with each other.

“You want to _fix_ me? Do a little tune-up, some bodywork, shape me back into an angel? I thought you’d put that behind you. I should’ve known better,” Crowley said bitterly.

Aziraphale swooned. The power throbbed along his corporation, begging to be used to _make_ Crowley’s anger go away. Aziraphale knew better than to impose anything involuntary on the demon. Instead he tamped down his control and protested: “No! No, I didn’t mean it like that, Crowley, I didn’t, I’m so sorry, I keep saying things that hurt you, I’m so thoughtless—” He wanted to take the words back, but he couldn’t, and the worst was, he knew there was a tiny bit of truth in how Crowley had heard him. It dismayed him, to realize that he hadn’t quite let go of his conviction that Crowley must have done _something_ to deserve his Fall. Even if it was true—and every day, he doubted a little more that Crowley had deserved any of it—the demon had long since atoned with suffering and service for anything he possibly could’ve done, and moreover he’d done nothing at all to deserve judgment from Aziraphale. Far from it, he’d been so kind and brave and protective, all these years.

He banished his betraying thoughts, but he could tell Crowley had sensed them, and the _hurt_ radiating off the demon cut like a knife to the stomach. Aziraphale’s hands fluttered, his emotions an anxious mess. He shuffled forward on his knees, folded his hands, bowed his head, and dipped his wings to the ground. Energy crackled along them, bouncing off the tiled floor. “ _Please_ , Crowley, please, let me try again, let me tell you, please listen to me.”

Crowley didn’t respond immediately, but his weight shifted from unnatural stiffness to his habitual contrapposto. “Get up. You don’t belong on the ground like that,” he growled.

Aziraphale looked up but he kept the rest of his body bowed. “I do, Crowley, I’m trying to show you. I won’t get up until I can explain. Please. Will you listen?”

Crowley swallowed. “All right.”

Aziraphale hesitated and then decided that he could come up with nothing better than the most direct approach. “I love you, Crowley,” he said. “I love who you are, now, today. I loved you a little bit from the moment I met you in the Garden, and every time I’ve met you I’ve loved you more.”

“Ngk. You love everything,” Crowley countered, but it was soft.

“Yes, it’s true. I do. But this is more. You _know_ it is, Crowley, you _must_ know. I’ll admit to you that I didn’t always want to love you, because I know you know that, too. My loyalties were torn, and I denied you, and I didn’t think about how I hurt you. I was taught to think awful things about demons and if I’d let myself properly look at you I’d have realized much sooner that you disproved all of those lies, but I didn’t and I denied you and I’m so, so sorry. I can’t express to you how sorry I am.”

Crowley looked away. “S’alright,” he said.

“No, it’s not,” Aziraphale said forcefully. “It’s not enough. Please, _listen_. You make me better, Crowley. I’m a terrible angel—I’m selfish and thoughtless and slothful and—”

“Stop,” Crowley spat, clenching his fists again. “I won’t let you talk about _my_ angel that way.”

Aziraphale blushed and felt a surge of love, which he tried to hold in, as it seemed unfair; he needed to use words to undo the damage he’d done with words. “Still. I can’t promise not to hurt you again, Crowley, you were right when you said I am both clever and stupid—” he held out a hand to forestall Crowley’s objection to that—“so I want to say how grateful I am to you for making me be better. I don’t deserve you but I’m so very thankful that you are here.”

Crowley coughed and then he, too, was kneeling; it wasn’t clear if he’d intended to do it or if his knees had given out. Aziraphale let go of the control he’d been exerting on his emotions and let them pour forth, and Crowley gasped, his feathers flaring. Aziraphale went on. “Please forgive me. I _don’t_ think you’re broken. I love you the way you are. How could I not? I don’t need to fix _anything_ about you to make me love you more. I’ll drop it if that’s what you want. But oh—” he wrung his hands, wanting to reach out, unable to—"I can _feel_ that you’re in pain, and I can’t not want to do _something_ to take your pain away. I desperately want to help you, it’s selfish of me, the _peace_ and bliss I feel when you’re happy, I want to feel that all the time—”

“Okay, okay, sssstop, angel, you’re ssssso much,” Crowley said, with a desperate-sounding laugh. He couldn’t meet Aziraphale’s eyes. Aziraphale could feel that the hurt was still there, but the anger had drained. He’d been forgiven for this misstep. It’d take time and care to do better than that. Crowley’s aura was still spiky, his defenses still up. He bowed his head, hands on kneeling thighs, wings still mantled. Trembling, even.

“You poor thing, I’ve taken you on quite the emotional odyssey this evening, haven’t I?” Aziraphale said. He reached out to smooth Crowley’s hair and the demon leaned into the touch like a cat. The power swirled within him, pooling in his hand, wanting to pour forth and heal the demon’s ancient injuries. Aziraphale gritted his teeth willed it to stay contained.

“I hate feelings,” the demon muttered.

“That’s all right, I can have all of them for you,” Aziraphale said. and that earned him a chuckle, and he felt well rewarded.

They were still on their knees, facing each other, and it began to feel a little awkward. Aziraphale didn’t want to let go of their closeness but they needed something light, an emotional break. He couldn’t help but look at Crowley’s wings; he so rarely got to see them, and they were fascinating in their dark and ragged way.

Slowly, Aziraphale shifted his weight to one side and tipped his right wing toward Crowley’s lap. “Perhaps you might be able to help me? The exertions of this evening have not been kind to my feathers, they’re all mussed.” It wasn’t a lie; the electricity of the magical energy coursing through him had his wings twitching and shoulders mantling, and his feathers were in a state.

Quietly, Crowley reached for the leading edge of Aziraphale’s wing and began smoothing feathers, pinching them between his fingers one at a time, zipping barbs together, and adjusting where they’d twisted against each other until they lay flat. Aziraphale sighed contentedly, his eyes drifting shut, his hands resting on his thighs.

A weight settled on his hands: Crowley’s wing. Aziraphale opened his eyes and glanced at Crowley, but he was concentrating on his grooming work. Aziraphale decided it was better not to talk, for the moment. He rested his hand atop Crowley’s wing, something he’d never done before, not in six thousand years. The feathers really weren’t feathers, they were more like scales, cool and rigid. He stroked them, marveling at the contradictions in them—firm and unyielding as armor, yet flexing with the movement of the corporeal form underneath, and buzzing with occult power. A few scale-feathers were missing here and there. The edges of the secondaries and primaries were jagged with broken and missing barbs, their edges worn and battered, but still glinting like polished metal where they were whole. It didn’t look like Crowley had grown any new feathers in ages. Perhaps he hadn’t, since the Fall.

The scales flared, opening gaps between them. An invitation? Aziraphale looked a question at Crowley, whose fingers still worked methodically through white coverts. “Just be careful,” Crowley muttered. “Edges are sharp.”

Aziraphale armored his fingertips with a thought and ventured them into a gap between scales. It was an awkward angle, so he needed to twist his arm to be able to reach carefully, but this was too delicate a moment to ask Crowley to rearrange himself for his comfort. Underneath, the armored scale transitioned to a feathery base, a hint of down, before it met the skin. Crowley flinched, hissing, when Aziraphale touched the nub of skin at the base of the feather, and a lance of pain lit up the empathic connection between them.

“S’like a hot poker jabbing in, each one,” he explained. “Before, you did, maybe, something icy? That felt good, then.”

Aziraphale withdrew his fingers and smoothed the scales. “Yes, that was with the bone and muscle, but there’s something different going on with the skin. It’s like a separate curse on each follicle. I can’t heal them and you can’t heal them, not alone. But I thought perhaps if I sort of pulled on the curse, distracted it, from both directions, both planes, I might weaken its hold, open up some room where you could go in and unpick it and heal it yourself.”

“That’s....barmy, angel.”

“I don’t _know_ that it will work but I _feel_ like it might. But I won’t pressure you, my dear; you’ve been through enough today.” He stroked Crowley’s wing, and Crowley continued to work his deft fingers methodically through Aziraphale’s feathers.

It was hypnotizing, the heavy weight of Crowley’s wing in his lap and the light combing and tugging of his wing being preened. Aziraphale’s mind drifted and he imagined flying again—it had been more than a century since his previous flight. That flight had been one of despair, a cold night in November trying to escape the injustice and waste of a beloved human’s untimely death. Aziraphale consciously tried to imagine a more pleasant flight, one over Eden, and he wondered what it would be like to fly with Crowley.

“Mmmkay,” Crowley mumbled, surprising him out of his reverie.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Crowley inhaled, seeming to need the air to fortify himself. “You can try it.”

“Are you very sure? It’s not just I who will be working this time. You will also need—”

“I said okay,” Crowley gritted out.

“Right, let me just settle myself into a more comfortable position. And I dare say one last fortifying glass wouldn’t hurt.” He poured both their glasses full—Crowley drained his immediately—and set the bottle aside. He shifted his legs until he was sitting cross-legged adjacent to Crowley, facing him, their thighs touching. “Lift your wing a little, there’s a love.” He contemplated the black scales before him. “Let’s discuss how this is going to work.”

Crowley groaned. “Less talking, more doing the thing.”

“Hush. This will be tricky and we need to work closely together. From what I could tell, the primaries and secondaries will be the most difficult. I have no idea if we’ll be able to finish the work on all your feathers before I run out of strength.”

“You’ll stop long before you exhaust yourself,” Crowley insisted.

Aziraphale smiled tightly. “You do know how I get carried away, so I’ll trust you to help me stop before I’m forced to, my dear. I propose that I start on your underwing here, with the smaller coverts, to get the hang of it, and then shift around to the secondaries and primaries on your upper wings. Then go systematically through the alulae and then the large coverts on your upper wings, and then keep going into the smaller coverts as long as we can last.”

“Anything you say, let’s get on with it.”

“Patience is a virtue, Crowley.”

“Demon,” Crowley reminded him. Aziraphale recognized the bluster for the lie that it was; Crowley’s smile was shaky. Aziraphale loved him and didn’t bother to suppress the pulse of it. 

He turned where he sat and held out his hands. Crowley hesitated and then placed his hands atop them. Aziraphale bent his head, feeling that something momentous was about to happen. _Please, God. He is the most precious creature. He has suffered so much but has so much love, and is such a righteous defender of Your creation. I can’t serve You properly without him at my side. You mustn’t have meant him to suffer for all time. You couldn’t. Please let this be Your purpose for me, to bring him comfort. Amen._

“All right, I’m ready to begin,” Aziraphale said, extending his aura a little into Crowley’s corporation and feeling the demon mirror him. “Fluff them up, my dear, so I can reach the roots. I’m going to pull a little, here—is that too much?”

Crowley had hissed with the tug on his feather. “No, s’alright, just stings, it’s not unbearable, will be if it goes on too long—”

“Right, let’s be efficient...” Aziraphale proceeded to talk his way through it, stretching out the tendrils of the curse on both planes, and the curse responded like a sentient thing, redirecting its energy to defend itself against Aziraphale’s pull until Crowley saw the opening and was able to dart in and tear the curse away from it, begin the flow of time in it again, and then he could heal it of the searing inflammation that had persisted since before the Garden.

They both surfaced, and Aziraphale smiled brightly. “I think we did it,” he said. “Didn’t we?”

Crowley nodded. “Think so, yeah,” he said, cautiously. “Still hurts a bit, but it’s different. Maybe.” He sighed heavily. “One down, five hundred to go. Not sure if I can do all the healing now, I may just have to leave it for later, or I won’t have the strength.”

Aziraphale wiggled his fingers. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” he said in melodious Chinese, and got to work.

* * *

They quickly fell into a rhythm, a repeated set of magical motions. It wasn’t difficult going at first, the individual stings merging into a dull ache, painful but bearable. Aziraphale was performing three workings at once: distracting the curse in the corporeal plane, doing the same in the metaphysical plane, and exerting a constant pressure of love that Crowley could not help but respond to, feeding it back to the angel in a way that he now understood replenished Aziraphale’s power.

Crowley dug his fingers into the coverts atop the white wing in his lap to ground himself in the physical realm, mirroring Aziraphale’s fingers picking carefully from one of his own feathers to the next. He had lots of complicated feelings about angels and Heaven but the peace he felt with his hands buried in the Heavenly softness of Aziraphale’s wings was not at all complicated. He tamped down his self-consciousness and opened forth his happy, comfortable response of feeling the angel’s feathers.

“ _Dearest?_ ” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley wasn’t sure if the question came in the physical realm or inside him or elsewhere, but the feelings of curiosity and affection that accompanied it suggested that the communication was at least partly on some noncorporeal level.

“ _What?_ ”

“ _I know it is a difficult topic for you_ ,” and there were feelings of concern and care, “ _but it might help me to understand your injuries better if you could—that is, if you would be willing—to talk about what happened, when..._ ” reluctance, worry, and more care.

“ _When what?_ ”

“ _When—well, when you—when She—_ ”

“ _Ah. When I Fell._ ” He attempted nonchalance, but he knew he’d failed. There was no hiding anything from Aziraphale now, not with their hands buried in each others’ feathers, not with their souls bared to each other like this. He felt ashamed at the twisted ball of emotions that accompanied the word “Fell.” Anger, betrayal, longing, frustration at himself to know he still desired the grace he’d never have again.

Aziraphale paused his work to soothe Crowley, “ _I can’t claim to know Her intentions, because She’s not speaking to any of us,_ ” he said, and Crowley didn’t bother to suppress the little feeling of vindication that accompanied Aziraphale’s evident distress at that statement. “ _So maybe this is hubris. But what we are doing, here, now—Since Armageddon I’ve not known my purpose. My dear Crowley, I feel that this, here, is my purpose. You’ve suffered for so long, and I can help you heal yourself._ ”

Crowley felt tears rolling out of his physical eyes. He still felt the loss of Their grace, but Aziraphale’s love was the nearest thing he’d felt to it in—ever. He hadn’t thought he had any barriers left, but he’d been wrong. Despite everything, he’d always talked to God, held out hope that with the right argument he’d convince Them. 

He couldn’t give that up, not just yet. But he felt a shift, his internal compass shifting. Toward Aziraphale, of course. Loyal, ridiculous, frivolous, caring, hedonistic, self-sacrificing, loving angel. A flawed being, but one whose flaws complemented his own. Their side.

He began, haltingly, to tell his story, as they continued their partnered healing work on his feathers.

* * *

_If you would like to read Crowley's story about his Fall,[I wrote it down here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22446514)._

* * *

Crowley told his story. Aziraphale felt his love deepen. (It didn’t seem possible, but that was one thing he’d learned a long time ago: love can always find more dimensions.) The demon had suffered so much, yet had remained true to his essential nature through it all. Always clever, wily, always independent, always finding ways to escape and survive another day. But so lonely. There, then, was a second purpose for him: to ensure that Crowley never felt alone again.

The sense of purpose helped Aziraphale fight the curse on the demon’s feathers. It did begin to seem like a battle. The curse couldn’t possibly be sentient, yet it seemed to have sleepily detected his intent, and every feather seemed like a more difficult fight than the last. At the same time, as he pulled on a feather in the corporeal realm, and twined ethereal fingers around the curse in the plane of the wings, and loved and was loved in return, he felt the sympathy between him and Crowley growing ever tighter. He motioned with a finger of ethereal light and Crowley slipped in, grabbed the attenuated threads of the curse in the wing follicle, and tore them to shreds that vanished into the ether. Each time they were quicker, more efficent, more precise. It began to feel like the ritualized motions of a dance.

They came to the last of the feathers on his right underwing, beneath the thumb-like alula, and both of them surfaced. Aziraphale felt like he’d been tested in a straightforward battle at the side of a sword-brother, and ended up victorious. The irony that he’d never felt such camaraderie as a part of the angelic Host was not lost on him.

He grinned at Crowley, whose eyes were closed. “Dear boy, tell me how you feel.”

“Raw,” Crowley answered. “Sore. But it’s working.” A pained smile. “It hurts, but it’s working.”

“Primaries and secondaries next?”

Crowley drew breath in through his teeth. “Yeah. They’re—different.”

“Yes, I see that. I think we ought to fortify ourselves before we continue.” Aziraphale didn’t want to lose momentum, but he felt certain the next phase would be more difficult. He stood up and stretched. Crowley did the same. As he stood, a shower of black scales fell away from his wing, and he frowned. 

Aziraphale stooped to gather a few up. They were diamond-shaped, hard things, scratched and scraped at their edges, with a tiny bit of soft down at their bases, and had wickedly sharp quills. Aziraphale reached a finger to test the point of one and— “Don’t,” Crowley commanded. Aziraphale looked a question at him. “I can’t say why. Dunno. But don’t touch it. Can’t be good for you.”

Aziraphale considered whether to get some food and drink the human way or to spend a precious miracle on it. He wasn’t sure if he could afford the energy expenditure but he felt that just now it would be horrible to leave Crowley alone. So he miracled the simplest of food from a bar just down the block, leaving money in the till. Hearty meat-and-potato pasties, a bowl of pickled vegetables, and two glasses of stout beer. As he ate, Crowley picked up all the fallen feathers he could find, placing them in a flower pot. Crowley didn’t eat, but he did drink the fortifyingly robust beer.

Aziraphale wiped his fingers on his napkin (because of course he had a cloth napkin) and pressed it to his mouth. He folded it and placed it on the plate. It was time. “I’ll need to sit behind you for this next part,” he said. “I’m not exactly sure what the best position is. Maybe this? Settle down here.” He produced a low stool and positioned Crowley to sit in front of him. He could reach all Crowley’s flight feathers, but it didn’t seem right.

“Ng. Thisss won’t work,” Crowley said.

“I can see that, but I’m not sure what the problem is.”

Crowley bent his head and mumbled something. Aziraphale reached forward and gently turned Crowley’s chin toward him. “What was that, love?”

“Need more, um, contact. S’hard from behind.”

“Hmm.” Aziraphale stood and nudged the low stool forward to have Crowley sit on it, then conjured a second, higher stool for himself. Seated on it, his knees could grip Crowley’s sides, maintaining firm connection between them, and if Crowley bent a bit he could still reach the roots of all the flight feathers. Crowley placed his hands on Aziraphale’s knees, hugging them.

“I’m ready. my dear. Are you?”

Crowley turned to look at him. His eyes were entirely yellow. He looked afraid. Aziraphale kissed his temple and smoothed his hair. He felt Crowley shudder, then relax between his knees. Then: “Yeah, okay.” Aziraphale kissed the top of his head, then reached for the root of the outermost primary.

Crowley didn’t remember much about Before. But he did remember flying. He’d always figured it was part of the Almighty’s irrationally severe punishment, that he could remember flying. In particular, he remembered the feeling of air whooshing past his wings, all the minute sensations that he could pick up through the fanned flight feathers, the eddies and whorls of air that he could ride to feats of flight. The roots of his flight feathers were exquisitely sensitive, and that hadn’t changed with his Fall, but they’d never felt the freedom of open air since. Only shooting pain, as though each feather was a dagger thrust into the skin of his wing. Especially the ongest feathers on each wing, the primary and secondary flight feathers.

Aziraphale’s tugging on each physical flight feather was agony, like a blade sliding out of a wound it had made. On the other side, the angel gripped and tugged at the sticky curse, and it felt like his skin was ripping open. Yet Crowley envisioned the pain as the curse’s defense against being nullified, and the pain goaded him into swifter and more decisive action. As Aziraphale’s magic attenuated the curse, Crowley swooped in, snarling, raking occult claws along the stretched-thin fabric of the magic, slicing it open and causing it to fail. It hurt so much, but it was the hurt of a lanced boil, of a cauterized wound, of the resetting of a dislocated bone. It hurt in a way that promised that all could be right, if he had time and safety to heal.

He couldn’t spare much energy for healing now, though. He only healed any breaks in the skin, any places that were rubbed raw, or where demonic ichor oozed. The rest of the hurt he would have to return to later, once he was sure he had the power for it.

They hurt so much. He flinched from the pain and distantly he could feel Aziraphale’s thighs clenching around his ribs, accompanied by a wave of love and caring. Crowley tried to respond in kind, knowing that it fed the angel the power he needed to accomplish the work. But it was getting hard to feel those positive emotions with the constant pressure of pain.

There were twenty primaries and twenty secondaries, ten of each of the longest feathers on each wing. Each fought back. Each felt like a thicker blade piercing him—the first ones felt like arrows, the next like swords, and the last ones throbbed like thick-shafted lances piercing his flesh. Before long, he could no longer shield Aziraphale from the pain he felt. By the time they were working on the last one, the angel had bent his head to Crowley’s shoulder, resting it there and weeping with his hands buried in Crowley’s wing, still patiently working to pull apart each curse and let Crowley rend it to shreds. Crowley had leaned his head back, pressing the side of his face to Aziraphale’s. His hands itched for downy feathers but he couldn’t reach them with Aziraphale behind them. He made do by running one hand through the angel’s hair. When Crowley had torn apart the curse on the last primary, he shuddered in relief, and Aziraphale wrapped his arms around him from behind. “You’re doing so well,” Aziraphale said into his cheek.

“We have so far to go,” Crowley responded, and he was ashamed to feel tears rolling down his face. “I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe we should wait for another day.”

“No!” Aziraphale said. “I’m sorry. That’s not for me to say. You should choose how this should go for you. But you are so strong, you’re doing so well. I am a little tired, I admit. But that was the worst of it, and I still have a lot more power. Let me eat a little, and then the next part will be much easier. If you want. I can keep going. But it’s yours to choose, whether we should proceed. I’m ready to, but it’s up to you.”

Crowley felt raw, but he also felt lighter. He did want to keep going, to rid his feathers of the curse entirely, to be rid of the pain, and maybe to hope of being capable of flight again. And there was the intellectual satisfaction of participating in such a major magic work, to do it all at once like this. And to do it with Aziraphale, whom he could now admit he loved more than anything else—he would do anything. As long as Aziraphale was safe.

He goggled, for a moment, at the fact that he wanted to keep himself safe and happy for the sake of keeping his angel happy. What a strange thing, to be tricked into wanting to keep himself safe. He couldn’t even be mad.

Crowley noticed that false dawn had come. He reached with occult fingers into the nearest bakery that Aziraphale liked and pulled into his hands some rich pastries from trays that had just come out of the oven. He twisted around on the stool, steadying Aziraphale with one arm, and offering a sticky croissant filled with marzipan. “Eat up, angel.”

Aziraphale’s face made an “O” of delighted pleasure before his brain caught up and he realized that Crowley had stolen the baked goods. “Really, Crowley.”

“Extenuating circumstances. You need your strength. Now eat.” Aziraphale didn’t need to be asked again; he munched the pastries and emitted his precious sounds of pleasure and licked syrup and powdered sugar off of his fingers and Crowley’s soul was fortified by the successful temptation of an angel’s gluttony to eat stolen goods.

While Aziraphale ate, Crowley picked up more fallen feathers. Seven heavily damaged flight feathers had fallen out. Seven of forty was a lot. Enough to seriously hamper flight. But he couldn’t fly anyway. Better the damaged feathers come out, he thought. He stacked them and willed them into a pocket dimension along with the pile of fallen coverts he’d collected previously as Aziraphale prepared to begin the third phase.

The Sun rose over Soho. Its golden rays fortified Aziraphale, and he hummed as he worked. The upper-wing coverts were much easier than the primaries and secondaries had been. He felt that he and Crowley had turned the tide against the curse on the demon’s wings. They had a lot of work ahead of them still, but it wasn’t difficult work, just time-consuming. Aziraphale was also fueled by the slackening of the burden on the demon’s soul. It had been so weighed down by the curse. He was chagrined that it had taken him so long to realize that fact, and also that he could heal it. But now was not the time to dwell on that. He sipped pleasure from the release of Crowley’s pain, and it kept him going.

The Sun was sinking as he completed work on the topsides of Crowley’s wings and they repositioned themselves to finish the final left underwing coverts, once again facing each other with their thighs touching. Crowley tried to suggest that they could stop and continue another day, but Aziraphale wouldn’t have it. They were so close. His reserves were low, but there was no way he could stop now. He told Crowley so, and he could sense the demon’s reluctance, but also his desire to be rid of the curse on his wings. Aziraphale smiled and Looked at him, knowing full well the effect that his smile and eyes could have. To clinch his victory, he let his left wing drop into Crowley’s lap, and the demon’s fingers sank into his feathers again. He felt Crowley’s comfort and satisfaction, and that fueled him just a little, and he carried it into the momentum of the final stretch of healing. 

So close. He set to work.

Crowley was concerned about Aziraphale’s flagging strength, but they’d clearly broken the back of the curse; it was just a matter of gutting it out until the end, now. And he’d never been able to stand his ground against the angel’s resolve once Aziraphale had really decided on something, anyway. He’d done a good job of conserving his own strength, and was able to spare more for healing, toward the end. He tried to be as quick as possible, not letting Aziraphale use an iota more power than necessary, but he, too, was tired, more in mind and concentration than in magic. It had been a complicated working, and it had been more than a day.

They kept going.

It took Crowley several minutes to notice that they had finished. He surfaced from a daze into night, still seated on the ground. His lap felt cold, his fingers empty; Aziraphale’s wings had slipped out of reality, no longer needed to hold ethereal power. His own wings ached, but no longer burned. The blanket was littered with fallen scale-feathers.

It was done. They’d done it. _He_ ’d done it. In the privacy of his own mind, he could admit it, revel in the fact that he’d healed himself. He wouldn’t have been able to do it without Aziraphale’s help, but his had been the power. Aziraphale had seen to that, the beautiful bastard.

More sensations came to him after that: a weight on his shoulder. A limp arm in his lap. His own arm, resting across the angel’s lap. Soft curls against his cheek. No breathing, as far as he could tell. He realized with some alarm that it had taken him so long to detect that the angel had collapsed against him because his aura was so dim.

He tried to talk, and failed. Licked his lips. “Aziraphale.”

No answer.

That wouldn’t do. “Aziraphale!” It came out as a stage whisper rather than the menacing growl he’d hoped for. It was a slightly menacing whisper. The effect was ruined by the ticklish feeling of angel curls against his neck.

He was getting distracted. It was a little worrying, actually, how still Aziraphale was. Crowley had little psychic energy to spare, but with Aziraphale so close it wasn’t too hard to extend his aura to check. Aziraphale wasn’t in pain, but he was very, very, weak, every bit of his power depleted. He felt barely more than human. That wouldn’t do at all.

“Get up! Off me, now!” but as soon as the words were out of Crowley’s mouth he knew they wouldn’t work.

What had filled Aziraphale with enough power to heal a six-thousand-year-old curse? Happiness. It was so sappy. For his angel’s sake, Crowley tried to reach for that feeling, to give it to Aziraphale, but he was tired and it was not his habit. It’s very hard to reach for happiness when you’ve been bitter and angry for countless centuries. Crowley gave up almost immediately, because sloth.

And yet, suggested that doubting voice in the back of his head that had never been anything but trouble. And yet, what had he ever been doing, seeking out Aziraphale’s company, all these years, if not searching for happiness?

Crowley reached into his memory for those moments of reunion, when they’d met up again after long separation. Aziraphale’s voice practically singing his name, and the wave of affection that always accompanied it. Crowley gathered the warmth of those memories close to his heart, then he fed it to Aziraphale.

The angel breathed. The lips moved against his neck—Someone, what a feeling. He treasured it for a moment, then, again, he turned it around and gave the feeling back to Aziraphale.

“Did we.” Inhale. “Do it.” Exhale.

“Yeah, we did. Thanks to you.”

“No.” A long breath. “Not I. You.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you.”

“No, you. Were mug. Mugnff. Gnfcnt. Great.” Aziraphale tried to lift his head, but immediately banged his nose into Crowley’s collarbone.

“Yes, I was. And you’re an idiot. Told you not to overextend yourself.”

“Mfine.”

“Shut up. We need to get you inside and horizontal, let you rest.”

“‘M comfrtle. I don’ sleep, never sleep.”

“Liar. Up you go,” Crowley said, aware that he, too, was lying about the amount of strength he had to get them both downstairs. But he was in better shape than Aziraphale, so it was up to him. He managed to haul them both to a more-or-less vertical position. Damaged feathers cascaded off of his wings onto the tartan blanket. He dragged the angel off of it and wrung out enough powers from hidden corners of his aura to will the blanket to fold up on itself and slip into the pocket dimension where he’d tucked the fallen flight feathers. With an effort, he asked his wings to follow. They complied, and their ache faded substantially.

Clumsily and with muttered curses, Crowley manhandled the angel down the curling staircase to the flat. He said several prayers of thanks for gravity, which was on his side, for once. He nearly dragged Aziraphale to the bed with its rumpled covers and mountains of pillows, so much smaller than Crowley’s vast taut-sheeted dreaming dais. He had no strength to miracle anything more, so he removed the angel’s shoes the old-fashioned way and lifted his legs onto the bed, and that was pretty much it for his ability to help anyone do anything. 

It had been centuries since they’d shared a bed. It seemed like it ought to be significant, but Crowley was far too exhausted to dwell on that. He tumbled in at Aziraphale’s side, curling one hand around the angel’s arm to maintain contact. Crowley needed reassurance that the angel wasn’t going anywhere.

He was so tired. But he spared a few last moments before succumbing to sleep to gaze at Aziraphale’s face, so close to his. Aziraphale almost never slept. Therefore, watching him sleep was a rare pleasure, not to be passed on. There is nothing like the peace of a sleeping angel, and Crowley drank in the soft comfort of it, cataloguing everything he loved. The arched eyebrows. The upturned nose. The smooth brow, for once unworried. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth that spoke of his readiness to smile. The mouth itself, the perfect cupid’s bow of its lips slightly parted, its cleverness stilled for now. The ridiculous white curls. The amount of love that Crowley felt for those curls was entirely embarrassing. At the same time, there was no good reason to hide it, anymore. No one in all of Creation was paying any attention except the single creature that he loved.

Crowley curled up into a ball and pressed himself into Aziraphale’s side, and let himself fall asleep.

In the morning, when the Sun came in, Aziraphale stirred enough to smile at the tightly coiled demon in his bed. He pressed his lips to the tousled hair, drinking in the scents of sandalwood and ginger and smoke. Precious thing. He covered Crowley with a wing and allowed himself the rare luxury of returning to his dreams. 

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this might be intolerably syrupy sweet and soft to read, but I enjoyed writing all these feels. Please let me know what you think.
> 
> This is the last of the one-shots that have been filtering through my head, but it’s sort of prologue for a really big sprawling fic I’m beginning to outline. All this has been the calm before the storm: Heaven and Hell are beginning to collaborate for Armageddon 2.0, and the first order of business is to make sure the Ineffable Husbands aren’t around to interfere (competently or not). Nobody knows what an angel and demon in love can do, but we’ll find out.....as soon as I write it. I could really really use a beta for this, so if anybody’s interested in that, please let me know here or on Twitter or the Ace Omens Discord or Tumblr.


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